Two Lifetimes
by Spoons1899
Summary: A series of stories about the events that follow the newly part-Human Doctor and Rose joining hands on the beach in Journey's End.
1. Two Minutes part 1

**Two Minutes**

Two minutes after the now part-human Doctor and Rose joined hands on the beach that held traces of their connection across the stars they both have yet to say a word. The silence that followed the TARDIS' departure remains unbroken save for the sound of the ocean waves breaking ceaselessly on the shore.

Jackie is the first to speak.

"I'm going to call Pete," she says, and Rose has to give her credit for allowing only the slightest tremble to affect her customarily commanding tone. Rose's doesn't trust her own voice to work in the slightest, so she settles for nodding to her mother, a gesture that breaks the eye contact between her and the new Doctor.

They go on holding each other's hands, however. Rose gets the feeling they're both not sure what else to do. The imprint of the new Doctor's lips on hers from when she kissed him feels as strong as the salt breeze stinging her cheeks. She longs to say something to him, but her brain only buzzes uselessly with the events of the day. His equal lack of words adds another layer of uncertainty and strangeness, making her incapable of doing anything but staring out at the sea, the endless rhythm of the waves reminding her of a ticking clock, or else a gently pulsing blue light—

"There's a taxi already on it's way to take us to the airport," Jackie announces with a hint of pride that brings some colour to her exhausted features. "Said he was monitoring energy or something at Torchwood, already knew we were here. Wonderful man, my husband."

Rose responds with another nod, noting the slight clench of the new Doctor's fingers around hers at the word 'Torchwood.' She reassures him with an answering squeeze without even thinking, then freezes at the disconcerting familiarity of the motion.

"But it's still a bit of a walk across this beach to the road," Jackie continues, and again Rose is amazed that she keeps her tone almost completely free of accusation. "So let's get moving, yeah?"

"Rose." The sound of her name spoken in that achingly longed-for voice makes Rose's eyes immediately snap back to the new Doctor's face. He's staring back at her, looking a way she's never seen the Doctor look before— lost.

"I… I can come with you, right?" he asks quietly.

Emotions crash over Rose with a ferocity that far outweighs the ocean waves. She feels incredulous that the new Doctor would even have to ask after the words he said to her and the way she responded to them. But she feels angry as well and it's hot and sharp— how dare he look so fragile and unsure when confusion is pounding like blood through her body? How dare he expect an answer from her when she is so full of questions?

For the tiniest of seconds, she feels vengeful, wanting the tell him no, shove him away, leave him like the Doctor left her, make this new version feel some modicum of the pain that's torn at her heart and her life like a ravenous wolf, devouring nearly everything she's tried to cling to.

Then the new Doctor's fingers flex in hers and it's gone, giving way to the same blazing emotion that burst forth when she kissed him.

"Of course," she says in a choked voice, disregarding the sudden moisture in her eyes and gripping his hand so hard she thinks she may leave bruises. "Of course you can come with me. I don't want—" Her voice cracks but she pushes resolutely on, staring into the bottomless eyes she's seen almost every night in her dreams, ready to match his confession of an unspoken truth with one of her own. "I don't want you to ever leave me again."

Almost before she's finished speaking he's gathered her into his arms with a desperation that suggests he's been restraining himself from doing so for a while and simply can't hold back any longer. Rose clings to him just as tightly, pressing her face into his chest, hating to mar a new beginning with tears, especially as she's shed so many millions on this beach before.

The Doctor's new single heart beats beneath her ear, strong and constant, the sound of a promise.

They separate after only a few moments, though their hands quickly find each other again. Jackie continues to remain uncharacteristically silent, but takes a firm hold of Rose's other arm and the three of them set off across the beach, leaving the sound of the ocean waves behind them.

Rose sits between Jackie and the Doctor in the back seat of the taxi, and they both drift off almost at once. The surreality of the situation hits Rose like a blow, the sight of the Doctor with his head leaned against the window, eyes shut and mouth slightly parted in the same exhausted sleep as her mother hammering home everything her own weariness and confusion have been allowing her to ignore.

The Doctor isn't here. He is, part-human with fluttering eyelids and a pulse clear in his throat, but he isn't, because he's also in a TARDIS or on another world somewhere in another universe, without her.

That truth, finally realised without the distraction of the new Doctor speaking those words in her ear or looking at her with such need in his eyes, hurts with a crushing pain, and it's all Rose can do not to double up in the taxi's back seat and scream with agony.

She travelled across worlds to find the Doctor again. She spent several years working obsessively on a device that cost far more than just money and would allow her to get back to him. She saw realities of him dead, unable to regenerate. She watched Donna Noble suffer then sent her to her death. She faced Daleks and the end of all creation, just to be with him again.

And for a brief, shining, glorious while she had been. There'd been loss and fear and danger and flames, but she had been reunited with the Doctor, and she was prepared to live out the rest of her life running with him across the stars.

But in the end she's stuck right back on this strange world of zeppelins and Torchwood and no Doctor. And yet, here he is right next to her, body warm in all the places it's pressed against hers, fingers still holding tight even in his sleep. The Doctor she gave everything to find would be wide-awake in his place, staring out the window and keeping up a running commentary whether Rose was listening or not, and possibly sonicing a few parts of the taxi just for good measure. The Doctor next to her sits so still Rose might be afraid something has gone wrong and he's died if not for the fine mist his breath is making on the window.

And though a small part of Rose wants to shout and strike out at this Doctor, to blame him for the other one who left her behind, to blame him for being human when she did so much to find a Time Lord, a much larger part of her is swelling with the memory of his words.

_I've only got one life, Rose Tyler. I can spend it with you, if you want._

It isn't what Rose wanted because she hadn't even considered it possible. Her life was going to be bittersweet, lived out with the Doctor until the end and he would carry on without her. Rather like he was doing now. But for Rose this isn't the end. She can see a thousand sparkling possibilities stretching out in the future, their future.

Because the man next to her _is_ the Doctor. Rose isn't doubting that like the last time he changed in front of her. The uncertainty of what new differences she'll have to learn and adapt to tugs sharply at her but for the time she ignores it. She accepted him the moment he spoke those three words so definitively in her ear, the moment she sealed those familiar lips under her own, and she can't deny it. Her body and her heart knew what her mind is still struggling with.

She can't decide if she feels lucky or trapped. The Doctor who left in his TARDIS gave her a chance to be happy, a chance to be with him in way that never would be possible if she were actually with _him_, a chance to resurrect a life she had been ready to let die. He gave her a chance, but he didn't give her a _choice_.

Anger bubbles inside her chest again as she thinks of the man who tricked her into going home and forced her to tear open his TARDIS to return; the man who tried to send her to this reality and forced her to tear herself from her family when she chose him; the man who left her broken on a beach and forced her to tear apart the universe looking for a way to be whole again. And now the same man has left her again, told her she is needed, _told_ her she is staying behind.

The Doctor next to her stirs faintly, a small twitch of his shoulders that she feels with more than just her body. He looks so fragile lying there, asleep as she's only seen him after his regeneration, and suddenly she remembers. He gave her a choice. Twice now, he's asked her if she's okay with the situation, allowed her to make the decision for herself.

The other Doctor gave her a chance to make this choice, she knows deep down with an ache that hurts but isn't quite pain. And while she's left behind yet again, this time she isn't alone.

And she is so tired of being torn.

There's a tiny flicker at the back of her mind, like the remnants of a dream or a whisper she can't quite hear. Rose doesn't know if it's her exhaustion making her delirious or something else, but she sits up straight and focusses on the feeling, blocking out everything else. Instead of the inside of a taxi cab she can see the blue glow of the console room, a dark figure walking around it with steps that whisper like wheels on the road.

_I'm sorry_, she tells him. _I forgive you. And I understand._ There's a subtle change to his posture like a car going over a bump and she adjusts. _Well, I think I will, eventually. And I think I'll be happy eventually as well._ He reaches out to pull a lever, and though the movement is slow his hand is steady. _I hope you will be too._ He's starting to move away, darkness closing in on him like a dark road rushing past. _I love you_, she says and there's a brief flare of light like a star coming into existence. Then she's blinking dazedly in the quiet of the back seat of the taxi, feeling drained and alone except for her last word which reverberates in the silence like the final note of a symphony.

_Good-bye_.

Her life may still be a little bittersweet after all, Rose thinks, before she tilts her head back in the crowded, quiet seat and cries.

* * *


	2. Two Minutes part 2

When they reach the airport, the Doctor wakes up as suddenly and smoothly as he fell asleep. He turns immediately to look at Rose and she meets his eyes steadily, having wiped away all traces of her earlier tears. Neither of them smile, but the gaze has a warmth that lingers until Jackie groans and Rose turns away to help her from the car.

A plane is waiting for them, one of many perks of having a billionaire as part of the family, and while Rose spends the entire walk across the tarmac arguing with her mother about her decision to use the dimension cannon despite it's known risks and Rose explicitly telling her not to, she makes sure to reach out and grab the Doctor's hand again.

It's an odd feeling, to be the one leading the way while the Doctor is the one who looks a little bewildered and follows complacently behind. Still, his hand feels as utterly right as ever closed around hers, and she lets that thought take precedent in her mind over any thoughts of differences.

Once on the plane, Jackie calls Pete one more time then falls asleep again in a seat near the back. Rose and the Doctor sit more towards the middle, still holding hands, their extreme proximity in the large empty space feeling ridiculous and yet reminiscent of the way they used to always be in their travels.

"You're shivering," the Doctor murmurs, speaking for the first time since the beach.

"What?" Rose is caught off-guard and blushes, realising she has been staring intently at the Doctor as though he is a specimen, mentally cataloguing all the things she notices are different about him.

"You're shivering," the Doctor repeats, half-raising his hands towards his shoulders before letting them fall limply back in his lap. "Oh," he says, his voice no longer soft but strangely flat. "I don't have my coat. I was going to offer it you."

Rose shifts a little in her seat, his sudden closed-off expression making her uncomfortable as she senses it's a result of much more than just not having his coat. She thinks if she has to deal with any more tension right now she'll explode into a million pieces, and though it may be selfish, she attempts a joke,

"Would you offer me the leather one or the big brown one?"

The Doctor looks at her and the spark of light in his eyes makes Rose think maybe it's not so selfish after all. "Either," he says, the first hint of a smile on his thin— but soft, they were very soft— lips. "Both. Or maybe a big brown one made of leather. D'you reckon I could pull that off?"

"Big brown leather coat in this society?" There's a hint of laughter to her voice that just might be free of tears. She doesn't want to test him, it's not fair to test him, but she can't suppress a certain tentativeness as she continues, "You'd be better off in a bin bag."

The Doctor laughs, startlingly loud and wonderfully happy. Rose has dreamt of this sound, heard it so often in her best memories, the ones she clung to in order to keep the worst ones at bay, and for a moment she's sure she'll burst into tears again, utterly overwhelmed. Instead, she finds herself laughing too, and the two of them shake and clutch at each other, giggles shooting towards hysterics until a voice from the back of the plane croaks,

"Bloody mad, both of you."

They sober as best they can and turn together to find Jackie managing a pretty impressive glare given that she has only one eye cracked open.

"Sorry, Mum," Rose whispers abashed but with a grin still tugging wildly at her lips. "Didn't mean to wake you."

Jackie rolls her single talented eye, the slips back into sleep, muttering as she goes. The Doctor and Rose meet each other's gaze, still half-laughing, and for a moment everything is easy and right between them, just like it's supposed to be.

***

Pete is waiting at the door for them when they finally arrive at the recently reconstructed Tyler Mansion several hours later. He hugs Jackie first, then Rose, frantic relief evident on his face. Yet ever the business man, he gets straight to the point.

"Tony's asleep," he tells his wife, slipping an arm around her shoulders. "And you should be too, you must be exhausted. Your beds are ready for you and Rose, though I wasn't sure—"

For a moment he breaks composure, glancing at the Doctor, and Rose can see he is longing to question him, to have the situation explained. But, displaying the intuitive sensitivity he seems to possess in any universe, he simply clears his throat and continues smoothly,

"There are plenty of guest rooms, if you need one. Pick any you like."

More grateful than she can express, Rose gives her dad another quick hug, then kisses her mother on the cheek and takes the Doctor by the hand a final time that night, leading him upstairs and towards the far wing of the house where she has her bedroom.

The room is dark and cool, and Rose doesn't turn on the lights after she leads the Doctor inside.

"You can have a guest room if you'd like," she tells him, releasing his hand and turning away to kick off her shoes. "There's one right next door, with it's own bathroom, if you don't want—"

"I do want," the Doctor interrupts her, speaking in a low rush. "I mean, only if you don't—"

"No, I don't," Rose answers just as quickly, turning to face him and glad of the darkness as she feels her cheeks flush. "Mind, I mean. I don't mind, I _do_ want…"

"Okay, good." The Doctor eyes shine even in the shadowy room as he looks at her, and she remembers a similar stuttering conversation from what feels like lifetimes ago when those eyes were still new to her.

"I'm going to go brush my teeth," she says mostly because they're the first words that come to mind. "If you want to use the bathroom next door, there may be some of Mickey's things you can—"

She stops, the name like acid on her tongue, the burn all the more powerful for its slight delay. The Doctor is no longer looking at her and she practically flees into the bathroom without another word. There she takes much longer than necessary to wash her face clean of make-up and tear residue, brush her teeth and hair, and change into a tank-top and loose drawstring trousers. She stares at her face in the mirror, noting the redness rimming her eyes, the dark bruise-like shadows above her cheeks.

She can't take any more heartbreak tonight. She can't think about Mickey, or Jack, or Donna, she just doesn't have the energy or the tears left. She needs sleep, and if she's being honest, she needs the Doctor. The rest of her grief will have to wait until morning.

He's sitting on the bed when she emerges from the bathroom, his jacket, trainers and socks removed and placed neatly on the chair in the corner. He leaps to his feet when he spots her like they're at a fancy restaurant in a movie, then proceeds to shift his weight back and forth until she pulls back the covers of the bed. Once she gets into bed he climbs in next to her and they lay very still without touching and without speaking, breathing into the heavy darkness.

"He said you were dangerous." Rose has no idea what makes her say those words, but the moment she does they hang in the air above them, sharp and thick. Worse still, she can't stop herself from adding more. "He said you were angry and like, violent. But—" The realisation comes to her slowly, like a bandage being peeled from a wound. "You're not, are you?"

"I committed genocide." The Doctor's voice is deliberately blank, and he seems almost to be speaking to the darkness in the room rather than her. "I wiped out the entire Dalek race."

"You had to do it." Rose is also finding it easier to speak to the darkness; she's had many years practice now of talking to the emptiness of the night, but this is the first time the answers coming back in that voice aren't just imagined in her head. "That's what the Time War was for— it should have ended there." She rolls away from him, a faint memory pulsing at the back of her head, too inconstant and discomforting to grasp. "I would have done the same thing."

There is silence for a moment and Rose tucks in on herself, another thought rising like oil to the surface of her mind.

"He made it sound like he was punishing you," she says in a small voice to her pillow. "Like leaving you here with me, that was your punishment."

Again there is silence and Rose thinks the Doctor isn't going to answer this either; she hunches even tighter, wondering if it might be better if he sleeps in the guest room after all. Then the silence is broken by the soft whisper of the bedclothes as the Doctor rolls over and slides his arms around Rose.

"How can you say that?" he asks, his voice sounding slightly choked. Rose feels a lump in her own throat as she settles into his embrace. She's longed for this almost more than anything else during their separation, the easy way the held each other as though they just _fit_.

"How can you possibly think this is a punishment for me?" the Doctor continues, and she can feel every word against the skin of her neck, warm and real. "You are and always have been the greatest thing to happen to me, Rose. He was trying to tell you that. For him, that was the only way to say it."

"But not for you," Rose murmurs. The Doctor tightens his grip around her, curving his body to surround hers in that way only he can. It's the same way they've lain together before and yet it's different too, because it's _more_, more needy and more desperate and more wonderful for both of them.

"Not for me," he confirms, lips brushing her cheek in a chaste kiss that holds almost more emotion than their first one on the beach earlier that day.

Rose winds her fingers through his and closes her eyes, surrendering at last to the exhaustion dragging on her bones, feeling warm and secure in the Doctor's hold as he whispers, "I love you," again in her ear.

* * *


	3. Two Days part 1

**Two Days**

Two days after the now part-human Doctor and Rose joined hands on the beach that held traces of their connection across the stars the Doctor wakes up feeling groggy and thick-headed.

The moment his eyes are fully open he sets them to work locating Rose. They find her sitting solemnly in the chair across the room. She's already dressed in a crisp blazer and trousers, colours muted and drab.

"What time is it today?" the Doctor croaks, wishing there was a way to jump start his salivary glands through sheer mental power and fix this apparent human tendency to wake up with a mouth as dry as the deserts on Kr'tlen.

"Noon," Rose answers, moving from the chair to perch carefully on the edge of the bed. The Doctor lays his hand on her thigh in a compulsive action he isn't even aware of until after he's done it.

"Have you been up long?" he asks, something about him being in bed and holding Rose's leg making him unable to meet her in the eye.

"About an hour." She shifts, not like she wants to get away from him, but not like she wants to get closer either. Her next words come out in the stilted, rushed way that he is unhappily aware his presence has brought between them. "I didn't think you'd want to wake up alone."

He can hear the pain of memory in her voice, a perfect reflection of his own. They're both thinking of the time they've spent apart, and for a moment it's all he can to rub her leg and swallow and _why_ are human salivary glands so useless in the morning?

"Thanks," he croaks after a moment, biting off the word as he realises how incredibly inadequate it is. He meets her eyes now, because this is about the two of them and not only saying the things they have to say but also the things they do say. "I'm glad it's you today and not your dad again."

He gets a smile at that, albeit a small one that's gone far too soon for his liking. Still, it's better than yesterday when she hardly smiled at all.

Yesterday— his and Rose's first day together— the Doctor was shaken awake by Pete. It took his brain and his newly part-human body a moment to connect, and when they had the first thing he had done was blush. He was so startled by this new human action of stimulated vasodilators and expanded capillaries, which was rather uncomfortable and terribly inconvenient, why have a physical response that draws attention to the fact you are embarrassed rather than one that disguises it? that he stayed still and simply stared at Pete.

Fortunately, Pete didn't seem angry to find a man who was basically a stranger curled so tightly around his daughter in her bed that even the Doctor was a little confused as to whose limbs were whose. Instead Pete gently prodded Rose awake as well, then informed them that it was two in the afternoon and they were both likely dehydrated.

Remembering his last regeneration, the Doctor received and drank two bottles of water readily, not exactly pleased with this body's current need for so much sleep but understanding it's necessity. After all, a metacrisis would take it's toll on anyone. He was not as accepting of Rose's fatigue, the dark circles under her eyes and the paleness of her skin, especially as he learned it was, to her, an expected and familiar side-effect of travelling with the dimension cannon.

His was prevented from voicing his opinion of this— which in his head was oscillating rapidly between anger, curiosity, and concern— by Pete informing them he had brought in a doctor to treat Jackie who had become violently ill following her first cross-dimensional trip. While this increased the Doctor's discomfort, Rose was the one to speak up, half-shouting about how her mum shouldn't have gone.

"Ah well," Pete replied with the air of a man who had experienced enough unanswerable outbursts to develop a wisdom from them. He handed them each another bottle, watched as they took disgruntled sips in unison. "The things we do for love."

The Doctor and Rose spent the rest of yesterday around the house, Rose giving him a dispassionate, bewildered sort of tour as though the rooms belonged to someone else and she wasn't quite she how she knew about them. She showed him to a disused greenhouse on the grounds, becoming suddenly shy as she murmured something about a workshop. The Doctor took her hand as an answer and told her the angle of the sun and the exact number of minutes of perfect natural light the greenhouse would get during the day.

She took him to meet Tony after that. He had brown eyes just like his sister and it hurt a little to hold one of his tiny hands and listen to his babbling nonsense, but the Doctor thought some of it was the good kind of hurt, the kind that meant a wound was healing, or at least turning into scar tissue.

The Doctor tired annoyingly quickly yesterday, and after eating a warm and comforting dinner cooked by some of the mansion's discrete staff during which the Doctor asked about Vitex because he was fairly positive flavoured health drinks were a neutral topic in any universe, he and Rose returned to bed. There was so much he wanted to discuss with her, but holding her in his arms and feeling her breath against his cheek in the dark felt like a conversation of its own, and it was enough to content him into sleep.

He feels less lethargic today, and judging by Rose's apparel and the return of some colour to her cheeks she is feeling better as well. He asks about her mum, resists making any sort of joke when Rose says she's on the mend and the doctor treating her has already left, then he asks about them.

It's a simple question, one of the simplest he can think of in this new reality they're just starting to build with its millions of unknowns buzzing inside of him like a swarm of bees.

"What are we doing today?"

"I thought we'd go down to the shops." Rose's answer is just as light as his question, both so wary of being stung. "Get a bit of lunch, and then buy you some clothes."

What's wrong with blue?

The Doctor hopes she doesn't notice his slight pause, even though he knows she of course does. "Okay," he says.

The air outside is cold but the sunlight is blindingly bright. It seems to be a day of contrasts as the Doctor and Rose walk from the Tyler mansion into town. He's the one inappropriately dressed for the weather in a t-shirt and trousers, while Rose is austere and formal in her sombre suit. She walks with purpose rather than eager curiosity, and his lack of local knowledge feels more formidable than exciting. They don't hold hands, the Doctor says little, and Rose doesn't smile.

Once they get lunch, however, from a place with brightly coloured napkins and smoothies that come in several flavours the Doctor remarks are illegal on the planet Belthor, they begin to lose some of the stiffness prickling at them both like sunburn.

It feels similar to throwing off an illness that has kept you bed-ridden, the Doctor imagines, and learning to walk again. He and Rose have to learn how to have an adventure together again, how to let go and enjoy themselves like they used to do so effortlessly. The memories are there, though hard to reach behind layers of pain and the sparking uncertainty of this new life, and while falling short hurts they both keep reaching. For today, the second day of the rest of their lives, the effort is just as good as the desired end.

Three and half hours later the day has grown warm around them and they stop at an outdoor café, laden with shopping bags and ignoring the ungainliness of their tightly linked arms. Rose orders tea and rolls her eyes when the Doctor orders three different cakes, which he protests are to share but that they both know he'll eat the majority of himself. They choose a table where they can sit next to each other, and when their knees touch under the wrought iron neither moves away.

"I could get used to this," the Doctor says cheerfully, polishing off a last forkful of cheesecake and reaching for the double chocolate. Rose goes very still next to him, her eyes suddenly fixed on her tea.

"Well," she says in a voice that is horribly small and flat. "You'll have to."

He looks at her, wondering if it's a human thing to feel as though you're about to vomit cheesecake everywhere in response to four little words. He makes a concentrated effort not to, and manages to get out four words of his own. "What do you mean?"

"No TARDIS, no spaceships, no dimension cannon," Rose tells her tea in a horribly practical voice that sounds nothing like her. "You're stuck here. Nine hundred years of time and space, and now you're stuck here for the rest of your life." She doesn't add _with me_ but they both hear it anyway.

The Doctor takes a moment to answer, swallowing a mouthful of double chocolate before remembering his stomach is currently leading a revolt. He doesn't think telling her that he's already thinking of ways to synthetically manufacture an exponential rotary circuit to further increase the growth rate of a new TARDIS is what Rose wants to hear right now. He doesn't think laughing at the absurdity of her worrying about him not wanting to be with her is the way to go either, partially because he has a strange feeling that his laughter would manifest itself as tears.

"I was human once," he says at last. It gets Rose to look at him at least, albeit confused and possibly even a little scared. "It was while I was travelling with Martha. There were these aliens after me, and I needed to hide. So I used this chameleon device that rewrites Time Lord DNA into human."

Rose still looks confused, but she's listening intently as she always has to his explanations, and he can see her wonderful mind working to understand what he's saying.

"Using this device changes everything about a Time Lord, even their memories." The Doctor reaches out and takes Rose's hand without thinking, and she doesn't pull away. The soft warmth of her skin under his is like a drink of soothing tea, coating his throat and allow the words to continue. "I thought I was John Smith, a school teacher in nineteen-thirteen, who just occasionally had strange dreams about blue boxes and planets with orange skies."

He traces the pad of his thumb over the back of her hand, his voice dropping to that deeper, quieter place that's just for her. "And you," he continues. "Even as John Smith living a human life day after day I never forgot about you."

Rose's eyes look distinctly wet and she opens her mouth, but the Doctor presses on. He doesn't want her to cry anymore because of him, and he rushes to make his point in the hopes that she won't.

"But as John Smith I had a future," he says without letting her break eye contact. "A future where I fell in love and got married and had children and aged and… and died. And I _wanted_ it Rose." He leans in and maybe it's a little strange for them to be sitting close enough to feel each other's breath in public outside a café but at that moment neither of them care. "I wanted that life and then when I changed back it was lost to me, it _died_…"

Rose is clutching his hand now as she stares back into his own suspiciously wet eyes, and the Doctor wishes he was kissing her rather than just staring at her like he's about to, but he needs to finish so she knows, so she never doubts this again.

"I meant what I said on the beach, two days ago." It feels like years. "I have only this one life and I _want_ to spend it with you, in every way. It doesn't matter what we do or where we go—"

"I love you," Rose gasps, and the awful voice in the back of the Doctor's mind that was hissing maybe she only brought this up because _she_ doesn't want _him_ is silenced as he does kiss her, and it's another contrast because it starts out deep and desperate and ends slow and sweet.

Eventually Rose slides back into her own chair and finishes her tea with dry eyes and a glow that only partially comes from her smile. The Doctor eats his way through the rest of the double chocolate and two-thirds of the Victoria sponge before remembering his promise to share. He tells Rose about the exponential rotary circuit and kisses her again when she nods and tells him she's pretty sure they have sonic technology at Torchwood, and if he's looking for a change maybe this time they should try a hammer.

They walk back to the house like an entry in a three-legged race, arms tight around each other as they fumble with their shopping bags and their laughter rings out against the cloudless sky.


	4. Two Days part 2

That night Jackie cooks dinner and Rose forbids the Doctor to say a word about it. In exaggerated compliance he makes many loud noises expressing his taste buds' pleasure as he eats, and smirks every time Rose pokes him under the table. Then one time her hand remains on his thigh and he becomes suddenly very quiet.

After dinner they wander out to the large terrace that overlooks the sloping grounds and the setting sun. Rose sits in a chair while the Doctor remains standing with his hands in his pockets because he isn't sure what else to do with himself.

The atmosphere between them has changed, their kiss earlier in the afternoon acting like a wreaking ball, breaking down the barriers between them and leaving way for other, softer things.

Or perhaps not so soft, the Doctor thinks, and shifts a little uncomfortably. He's not used to this urgency, this _need_ that is racing through his veins and filling his thoughts. He wants to be touching Rose, to be holding her, kissing her, feeling her skin under his own. And his brain, rather than being helpful and occupying itself with solving partial differential equations or listing all the stars in the Frelion galaxy, is supplying memory after memory of him doing all those things and more. He can hear the noises Rose makes when he touches that place on her hip, smell the scent of her hair, see her covered in a glistening sheen of sweat with eyes closed and teeth clamped down on her bottom lip—

He turns away and stares at the setting sun, letting it burn spots into his vision, wishing it could replace the burn inside of him too.

"Doctor?" Rose murmurs, and the sound of her voice saying his name is like sparks against his back.

"Yeah?" His voice is naturally that high sometimes surely, she won't notice anything odd.

"D'you think… D'you think we should get our own place?"

Her voice has a tinge to it that makes the Doctor turn around, his Rose-is-upset reactions firing just as strongly in this body as in any of his others.

She is sitting in the chair with her knees drawn up, looking at the ground rather than at him. She changed into a sweatshirt and jeans before dinner and she looks much more like the young and tentative Rose he first met, rather than the steely, driven woman she is now.

"Our own place?" he repeats, taking a step forward then rocking back on his heels when he remembers getting closer to her right now would be a very bad idea.

"Yeah." Rose still doesn't look at him, but picks at a hole in her jeans. It's an achingly familiar gesture that makes him want to touch her even more. "I mean, 'cause this is my mum and dad's house, and if we're going to be… _living_ together I thought…"

As she struggles with the words the Doctor realises he's come several steps closer. Angrily, he glares down at his feet, mentally reprimanding them with stern orders to stop disobeying him.

"Doctor," Rose says again, and the thrill at hearing her say his name almost outweighs the pang he feels at hearing her so sound unsure. "We… we might have to get a mortgage."

"That sounds wonderful," the Doctor replies, and his feet really are persistent because now he's standing right in front of her. "I've several new skills that have come with this body, Rose Tyler, one of them being a great love of mortgages."

"Really?" Rose asks, finally looking up at him with a smile a thousand times brighter than the sun.

"Oh yes." Now the Doctor's knees have joined his feet in mutiny because suddenly he is kneeling in front of her. "And doors, and carpets."

"Mmmmm," Rose hums, and the Doctor knows if he were touching her he could feel the vibration of the sound, and thus he isn't terribly surprised when his hands take it upon themselves to slide their way up her thighs. "Great big plush carpets," Rose breathes, leaning forward. "Ones you can lay in like blankets."

"Rose," the Doctor just manages to say before his lips take over completely and fix themselves to Rose for the rest of the foreseeable future. "I think perhaps… I should go…"

"House hunting can wait until the morning," Rose replies, sliding her hands into his hair, and damn if his eyes don't fall shut and refuse to open back up again. His voice is the only thing that remains even slightly under his control and he utilises the remaining dregs before they slip away entirely.

"I don't want you to feel pressured. It's okay if you don't want… You've only known me for two days—"

"Shut up," Rose says with what would be a laugh if it didn't sound like she had lost all the air in her lungs. "You're the Doctor. You're _my_ Doctor."

And then she's kissing him and his control is gone completely.

He practically climbs her body as he rises from his knees to his feet, pulling her up flush against him. Of all the things he missed about Rose when he was separated from her, sex was fairly low on the list. He had loved the mentality of it more than the physical pleasure— though he did rather enjoy the pleasure— because it was Rose trusting him and sharing herself with him implicitly, and a way for him to do the same for her.

However this part-human body seems to lack the ability to separate the mental pleasure from the physical and it's all tangling up inside of him with how much he's missed Rose and how indescribably grateful he is to have her here and have her wanting him and it's like he's in the burning centre of a star—

—and the next thing he knows he has Rose pressed against the wall of her house, leaning into her with his whole body, hands on her back under her shirt, cursing his lack of a bi-respiratory system when it forces him to withdraw his tongue from her mouth and gasp for air.

Rose laughs, a soundless shaking against him, and he smiles into her hair.

"I think," he mutters, tugging her away from the wall to pull her into a more complete embrace, because he's not apologising for what he just did but he's pretty sure he should, "we need to get our own place."

Rose hums again this time like _she_ knows he can feel it, then she takes him by the hand and tugs him back into the house and up the stairs and maybe he shouldn't be apologising after all.

The moment she shuts the bedroom door behind them he kisses her again, plunging his hands into her hair to tilt her head back and give himself as much access as possible to that wonderful mouth. Rose seizes his hips and pulls them blatantly forward, making him gasp in surprise at the contact.

Her hands are under his shirt before he's recovered, yanking it roughly over his head. She presses herself against his chest, fingers digging into the skin of his back, and he discovers that he is capable of producing a rather impressive growl from deep inside his chest. She goes for the waistband of his trousers but he stops her with another kiss, this one barely more than crashing together of their open, panting mouths.

He isn't quite sure how he gets her sweatshirt off without breaking the contact between them, but he doesn't much care as he makes her t-shirt follow rapidly after. Rose seems willing to take care of her own bra and for a moment he's distracted because it's a front closure which she definitely didn't wear those when they were running for their lives on a daily basis.

Now they both go for each other's trousers and shove them to the floor in seconds, kicking awkwardly to dislodge the tangled piles of fabric from their feet. The action forces them to separate and they both pause in their frantic passion, staring at each other with matching, heaving breaths. A pale, ethereal blend of moonlight and the lights of the grounds streams in through the open window, its gauzy curtains fluttering in the breeze. The Doctor runs his eyes over Rose's familiar body, his oh-so-clever brain having memorised every inch of her when they were together, sometimes he felt with the express purpose of tormenting him with vivid recollection during her absence.

Except, it's not her familiar body anymore.

His hands stop midway on their journey to mimic his eyes and trace those inviting curves as he takes in what he's seeing. A horrible, icky prickling feeling coats him from head to toe and his hands drop to his sides, his breath leaving his lungs like he's been punched in the chest, an exhale that sounds vaguely like her name.

There are marks on her skin, new marks the Doctor hasn't seen before cutting across her creamy skin like a roadmap drawn with ink on fresh parchment. He quickly catalogues them, drawing up a list at top speed in his mind of all the things that could cause a bruise like _that_ on her lower stomach, or make a scratch of that length on her arm.

His mind comes to a sudden, wrenching halt as it realises he's not just seeing new wounds. Some of them have already become scars.

"Doctor." Rose's voice is shattering loud in the silence though she barely speaks above a whisper. He forces his gaze back to her face, hardly aware of the moisture gathering in his eyes, hearing his own sharp, shallow breaths as though from a great distance. By contrast Rose remains perfectly still, her gaze steady and almost alarmingly blank.

She shakes her head, a tiny motion like a vindication.

"Don't," she says in that same quiet, assured voice. "It's not fair."

The Doctor wants to speak, to answer her or question her or yell at her or worship her, but his voice seems to be lost in the burning of his throat. For a moment he thinks of Donna pushing that gorgeous ginger hair of her eyes and sighing about how the one souvenir she seemed to keep from travelling the universe was the aches and bruises. Her memory flares inside of his head, mixing with the memory of Martha with cold eyes and the weight of a ruined world on her shoulders, and finally giving way to the memory of a younger Rose with an infectious smile who never would have stood in front of him so matter-of-factly bearing the evidence of years of pain slashed across her naked body.

Suddenly he finds he's not breathing at all, and he's pretty sure this single heart is a defect because it's beating so hard it's about to break his ribs and leave him the kind of destroyed shell he's left behind so many times in his wake—

"Doctor." There's a gentle, sad warmth to Rose's voice like a summer's raindrop, and she takes a step forward to reach out and lay a hand on his chest, holding in his shattering heart.

"I knew the risks," she says slowly and clearly, each word a pulse forcing his frozen blood through his veins. "I knew what I was getting into when I used the dimension cannon. I've been out there. I knew what could happen."

Her hand on his chest helps him find a piece of his voice, but all that comes out is her name.

"It was worth it," Rose whispers, staring at him with all the saved stars of the universe glowing in the depths of her warm brown eyes. "Everything I did… it was worth it. It brought me to you."

His heart reverses and implodes, and he pulls Rose into his arms, because there has been a vacuum in his life without her and she is the only thing that can fill the void. He holds her as close as he can without breaking her, except nothing can break her because she is the most incredible being he's ever known and she's here and she's his. She's more than the defender of earth or even the universe, she's the saviour of his existence.

He drops to his knees in front of her where he belongs, arms sliding down her body and holding her in place as he proceeds to kiss every single wound and scar.

Rose's breath stutters in her lungs but she shuts her eyes and stays still until his tongue traces a reverent line up the inside of her thigh. Then she tugs him up gently by his hair and kisses him; he can taste her unshed tears and the flickers of despair that ate at her hope like acid over the years and her cautious joy and her overwhelming, uncontainable love.

He carries her to the bed and though he'd like it to be romantic and slow and beautiful his body won't agree to that and he suspects Rose— now writhing underneath him, hands stroking and clenching in erratic patterns on his body— won't either. And he knows suddenly with a blinding, glorious realisation that there will be time for him to taste and tease Rose until she melts and burns, time for her to push aside his barriers and demonstrate new uses of her talented mouth, time for them to lay next to each other and kiss and stroke without urgency but the slow ease of utter contentment.

But right now they need to be together, to feel each other and touch each other and move as one. Rose's legs are around his waist and his hands are under her shoulders and he enters her and she surrounds him and they're home.

The Doctor feels like he's being born again, or perhaps this is the baptism for this new body. With every arch and moan Rose christens this new life, and it's the highest rapture the Doctor could imagine.

However, he is mildly concerned he might die, because surely a human heart isn't supposed to beat this fast, surely his lungs aren't supposed to work this hard, and surely his body isn't supposed to feel like it's being pumped with gas and set on fire, ready to explode at any moment.

His telepathy is all but gone within the confines of this body, but it doesn't seem to matter as he moves inside Rose, feeling her heartbeat through the depth of their connection, it's rapid pace matching his own. He recognises the sounds she is making, the way her neck is straining and the flush spreading across her skin. He knows she is close to the edge, and he refuses to fall without her.

The mental connection seems to be working both ways because at that moment Rose opens her eyes and looks up at him. He's been watching her the entire time— that remains the same as ever— but it changes when she meets his gaze. Time stops. The Doctor is sure of that impossibility because he's faced another that is unquestionably true— the impossibility of being joined with Rose Tyler, of being completed and being complete, of a woman and a love that can and have and will endure across the stars.

He is kissing Rose when they break and they break together, exploding like stars into glittering fragments that drift slowly down to a gentle landing, side by side.

The Doctor finds himself with one hand in Rose's hair, the other tracing languidly down her body. One of her hands is tucked between them, the other is curled with casual familiarity around the back of his neck. They can both feel two heartbeats as their pulses slow and their breathing finds a rhythm like the sea.

They don't go to sleep for a long while but lay without moving until the stars begin to fade from the night sky. Only then do they close their eyes at last, secure in the knowledge that soon they will see the sun, and the stars will return the following night.


End file.
